Bass Chalice

"Refreshingly urgent and transcendent...rarely has a reggae group ever appeared so accomplished in mixing orthodox roots reggae with modern dub creation." -The Beat

Who is 10 Ft. Ganja Plant? They are a dub & roots reggae band shrouded in mystery. They hail from the great Northeast and are rumored to share members with another great reggae group, John Brown's Body. Their shows are rarely announced or promoted. In fact, like a yeti sighting, they seldom occur. Anyone who has seen them live, or owns one of their albums, can attest to the fact that no other band has captured the 70's spirit quite like this crew, that 10 Ft. may be the best roots group in America.

Bass Chalice is 10 Ft. Ganja Plant's third release on ROIR. Their first, entitled Hillside Airstrip, and second, Midnight Landing, were both uniformly hailed by the music press. This time around, things are a bit different. First off, 10 Ft. Ganja Plant will be touring! Before this, the only chance anyone had to see them live was at an impromptu show, usually in the Boston area. There have only been a handful of these gigs and their frenzied, sweaty nature has left audiences clamoring for more. In early 2006, they will get it-10 Ft. Ganja Plant's first ever tour!

Beyond this, Bass Chalice sees 10 Ft. stripping away a bit of the mystery surrounding the band's lineup and actually letting us disclose a very special guest appearance by the legendary '70s Jamaican vocal reggae group The Meditations! Their first two albums, Message from the Meditations and Wake Up are downright, stone-cold reggae classics that must be heard. On Bass Chalice they grace "To Each" with a spellbinding vocal performance!

The Meditations are a fitting addition to the album because Bass Chalice, at its heart, is inspired by the recording processes of the great Jamaican studio bands of the 70's (and their American counterparts at Motown and Stax) where a song was typically written, learned, and recorded live in a single session, with no regrets, and no apologies. Add to this ethos some dubwise studio mastery and experimentation and you begin to get the picture. This is good news for a genre that seems to be gathering steam in recent months. Apart from big releases on ROIR by Dub Trio, Bush Chemists & Dr. Israel, other bands have been making their mark on stages around the country: Matisyahu, Future Pigeon, Dub Nomads, Dub Gabriel, Dub As A Weapon, Jah Division, and (on a different level) Damian "Junior Gong" Marley. Dub & roots reggae is more popular than ever and the 10 Ft. Ganja Plant army is poised to make a big, smoky impression.

Beyond Hillside Airstrip & Midnight Landing, 10 Ft Ganja Plant has released limited edition vinyl 45's, and a classic CD on their own I-Town imprint titled 10 Ft. Ganja Plant Presents. They are well known to those "in the know" and to the ever-growing clan of JBB concertgoers.

Besides can you think of a better band name than 10 Ft. Ganja Plant? I think not.



Of Hillside Airstrip:
"It's as if we'd uncovered a lost collaboration among Jimmy Cliff, Augustus Pablo, and Ernest Ranglin."
-Michael Endelman, Boston Phoenix

"Like a communion with Jah Bob [Marley] via ouija board." -Steve Barker, WIRE (uk)

"Those who enjoy old school roots reggae will love this." -Rick Anderson, AMG

"While the sounds are stylistically diverse, covering a range of bases from deep soul dub to lively up rock steady, they are consistently excellent. Hillside Airstrip is a place that fans of roots reggae will want to land real soon." -Shaun Dale, Cosmik Debris

"Refreshingly urgent and transcendent...rarely has a reggae group ever appeared so accomplished in mixing orthodox roots reggae with modern dub creation." -Robert Nelson, The Beat

"The best reggae album since the last Culture release." -Andy Kershaw, BBC Radio

"Hailing from upstate New York, this intriguing reggae collective is named in homage to Jamaica's own version of amber waves. The musicians in this posse have connections to other U.S. reggae groups, a few members having performed most notably as part of John Brown's Body and Tribulations. Serving up deep authentic reggae heavy on the vibes, 10 Ft. Ganja Plant is basically a delightful anachronism, performing in such a delightfully retro way that it's actually hard to imagine that these tracks aren't 20 or 30 years old. As such, they're something of a reggae analog to modern day soul/funk purveyors like Lee Fields, the Soul Providers, and the Daktaris. They show their reverence for the music of the past by doing their homework, learning the skills and playing it very much in the now." -James Lien, CMJ

Of Midnight Landing:
"Modern Roots reggae of the highest order" -Steve Barker, The Wire (UK)

"Midnight Landing offers a stylistic cornucopia to the listener...the variety makes for a reinvigorated listening experience that eschews predictability for a sense of musical absorption of many reggae subgenres." -Robert Nelson, The Beat

"Refreshingly thick from start to finish...this recording is bubbling over with soulful roots and passionate dub...so vintage in sound you'd swear it was recorded in the mid-'70s. This is one of my most treasured releases of 2003." -Eric Kholer, Reggae Nucleus

"Woven of authentic Jamaican colors...They are old-school scholars teaching a generation weaned on dancehall the joy of knowing one's roots." -Global Rhythm

"A rootsy, dubby wonder...A mysterious studio collective of upstate New Yorkers affiliated with the roots reggae band John Brown's Body, 10 Ft. gets deeply into the lazy, hazy rasta '70s dub groove of Lee Scratch Perry, King Tubby, and Channel One. Rumor has it that the brains behind 10 FT. Ganja is Craig Welsch, who began as soundman for JBB before diving into the studio with both analog feet. Remarkably clean, buoyant and musical, with just the right edge of trippyness, the songs were reportedly recorded live to two-track and mixed on the fly, fresh as morning dew on da kine buds...Golden Age reggae isn't dead my bredren, it's just moved to upstate New York, and exceptional cover art by Chris Capotosto completes the package." -Eric Olsen, BlogCritics.org

"No other American band has shown as much dedication to preserving the spirit of 1970s roots reggae as the mysterious 10 Ft. Ganja Plant, a group that deliberately keeps its lineup shrouded in a cloud of pungent smoke (though it's an open secret that the band shares several members in common with the Ithaca, NY-based roots collective John Brown's Body). 10 Ft. Ganja Plant's third album finds the band doing the same thing it did, to glorious effect, on its first two: channeling the rich, dark spirit of the great reggae studios of the 1970s, in particular Channel One and Lee "Scratch" Perry's infamous Black Ark, where the wet and echoey ambience that 10 Ft. Ganja Plant favors was perfected. The band leans toward instrumentals with lots of dubwise production effects, but the strongest facets on Midnight Landing are the songs - in particular, the joyful "Let the Music Hit," and the resolutely skanking "Mercy." Whoever the vocalist is, he has an interesting voice that lands somewhere between Bob Marley and Leo Graham, and whoever the bass player is (ten bucks says it's David Gould), he lays down sweet, heavyweight basslines that will wind your waist and soothe your soul. Very highly recommended. 4 Stars." -Rick Anderson, All Music Guide